colour theory

Colourful Theory lecture was very interesting it first covered the basic physical aspects of light and what it is, then how the body registers light through the retina to be able to perceive it. The lecture mainly talked about the perception of colour. Just because we see something as one colour does not mean that object is specifically that one singular colour.

In the second part to the the lecture we looked at the applications of colour theory and the difference between pigment and light colour. We are taught from a young age that the primary colours are red blue yellow as these are the primary pigment colours because you cant make those colours in pigment form from the other colours. In contrast to this the true primary colours the primary colours of light are red, green and blue as these are the base receptors cells (rods and cones) for colour in our eye.
The lecture then moved onto the Itten colour wheel. The theory behind the colour wheel is that colours work in relation to each other colours opposite to each other on the wheel are complimentary to each other and when mixed in equal amount will cancel each other out to make a neutral colour. Fred also talked about the perception of colour in relation to other colour around it. Colours look different when different shades and tone surround that colour.
The main points I think I'll take away from this lecture is how colour can be perceived in different ways depending on the context of it. This will be very important during my design process when considering the tone of my animation.

I found this section of visual language very difficult and is definitely something I need to look into in the future to improve my drawing skills in this area. There were 4 sections to this task which my group and I tried to do in one long session which I think was a bit of a mistake as fatigue impacted our drawing a bit.

the first task was drawing ten second poses of someone walking. I thought this was incredibly

hard 10 seconds is a very short amount of time to get down the form of someone so there is little time to think about what you're doing. I first started out using brush pens which worked quite well for this task as I needed something that worked fast. I used indian ink with a brush and water for one of them but it was hard to use in such a short space of time so the outcome was not very successful.

The second study task we had to do was 

similar to the first however it was drawing a squash and stretch motion. I found this task easier than the first but I think that was down to the fact I was using A2 paper instead of sketchbook. I probably should have done the first task on larger paper as I might have come out with better results. I used a different medium for each of the different drawings I felt the two above were more successful. I like using a brush pen as it allowed me to capture the overall shapes made in singular smooth motions however the line creates was very uniform so weight had little indication.

The next set of drawing was longer poses (10mins) where the person had to pull or push something. The key to this task was getting across the weight and force of the person/action. I felt the top one was one of the most successful as it shows the force being exerted and does look like someone is pulling something however the medium choice doesn't fit very well it is too light something with broad strokes and darker would work better. 

The bottom drawing was the least successful of mine. The person doesn't look grounded and looks like no force is being exerted. I do on the other hand think the media choice is better than the top pencil drawing.

The final task was some longer pose drawings. The objective was to try and capture the persons form to make the pose make sense. I found this task the most enjoyable, I'd done some life drawing previous to this but I found drawing a clothed model to be much harder than a naked one. The top image I had some perspective issues. I didn't notice until near the end of my drawing that the legs were far too long. I think more contrast between line sizes would have been beneficial as well to give me weight emphasis to the drawing. The bottom image was a more successful drawing in my opinion

as I feel i had capture the body shape better and the proportions where more accurate. I think some shading and darker pencil lines would have improved this drawing a lot.

drawing in animation

The lion king one of Disney's most successful films contains a large variety from the african savanna. To create their personified version of lions and other animals the animators first had to get references for their characters. They had actual lions brought into there drawing studio were the entire team could observe and draw an actual lion. This highlighted the importance of drawing from life when it come to animation. Not only do the animators need to capture the general shape of the animal or person but how its shape changes and how they move through space.

The animators also took regular visits to zoos to draw wildebeest and other animals that feature in the lion king. Overall its clear that all this research/referencing worked as this film is regarded as a timeless classic which few did not enjoy. I doubt this would have been achieved if the animals in it were not believable or relatable. 

environment drawing

For the final place for my environmental drawing I decided to do it in my flat. I thought doing it in a familiar environment would be good because I could impart my feelings on to the surrounding environment. Its also a place I felt I could draw more experimentally without outside judgement and had more free space to relax as I draw.

My kitchen is comprised of a lot of straight lines with rather dull colours and quite a few odd perspectives. I thought it would be a good challenge to try and draw it with simplistic line work. I found it quite difficult to get the perspectives right as this drawing required a lot of foreshortening. 

This is a view from my sofa, normally where I end up at the end of the day looking at my table. I decided to use warm colours as this is a place of relaxation. I used water colours and inks to create a soft texture to this drawing for the same reasons.

I came out of my room in the middle of the night into a pitch black hall way, looking up the stairs create a very odd view that was almost dizzying in the pitch black. I wanted to try and capture this feeling if looking into what feels like an abyss. I used graphite sticks to try and achieve the depth in the image however I think charcoal would have worked better on this piece.

The second place I decided to draw was a local pub called dry dock. Its a very interesting place because its a pub made out of an old boat in the middle of a green. Its next to all the main universities so attracts a wide demographic of people. I wanted to draw in a pub because its another place where all sorts of people meet but in a much more casual surrounding than a cafe, so a there are a lot of different stories that will come out of a pub. 

I drew quite a lot of the images at night when most people go to the pub, it was an odd experience drawing in this kind of lighting as I hadn't done so before. I focused a lot on the exterior of the pub and what a first person view would see rather than just a disembodied camera shot. 

Above was a view from the pubs beer garden at night. I felt this is what someone leaving the pub art the end of there night out would see in the distance. I used inks as they blend quite nicely together for a good lighting effect.

I experimented with a few mixed media drawings. Above I used pencil and water colour as the interior of the pub was rather gloomy but the exterior scene was bright and happier. Below I used Inks and a fine liner for the people out lines. I wanted to created a strong contrast between the people and the setting, this style was influenced by architecture concept art that normally uses similar mixed media approaches.

environment drawings

The first place I went for environmental drawing was a cafe. I go to them quite often to draw with a few peers as they are always a good place to observe others. Coffee shops are a standard daytime meeting place for many people for all kinds of reasons whether romantic or business, most of them are also in the centre of town which is a good location to draw. I decided to go to a Starbucks I'd never been to before and tried a variety of media to capture the scenery around me.

Molly and James working at a table in the coffee shop wanted to capture them working in the surrounding environment.

It was a very bright day when I wad drawing and the room was very illuminated. It created a good lighting effect on the room which was almost glowing so I thought I would try some bright warm colours to do line work with.

Looking out of the window down an arcade which had a weird looking perspective was a challenge to draw. decided to use thin line work to do this one as the scene looked like a lot of converging lines in real life.

Drawing of max drawing in the coffee shop. I used pencil for this.

People in the corner of the coffee shop by the window looked very gloomy the sun and gone in at this point. I wanted to try and capture the mood of them and the room. I decided to use indian ink as its very good a shading so can create a dark images easily but is also good for highlighting when using less of it.

drawing in animation

Avatar: the last air bender is a children's animated tv series that is based a lot around different martial art types combined with magic. One of the defining factors of this animation (although there are many) is the fluidity and how believable all the fight scenes are in the animation. This is down to lots of research and good drawing based upon it. The creators of the show based the movements on 4 types of martial art and choreographed the movements for the characters based on them. You can see in the concept sketches below that its the key poses in the movements that really matter and the overall form the body takes making them. There is little detail some are just stick figures but they show the key shapes the character needs to form whilst moving through a space. The overall result are amazing creating fight scenes that almost look like dances.

drawing in animation

Thought of you is an amazing animation short by Ryan Woodward. The animation is very simplistic it uses one camera angle and the is little colour but is the character movement that is really captivating. The animation is about two people dancing a duet. The animator didn't know much about dance so he got help from a choreographer to create the piece and spent a lot of time observing dancers to understand how they move. Ryan Woodward did a really great job of capturing the dancers movements there is little detail on the characters but that doesn't effect the animation at all. The forms the drawings take are what carry across the dancing so well and thats all down to good observation from the animator. The end result is a beautiful and fluid dancing animation between to flowing forms.

enviroments in animation

Skyrim is one of my favourite video games to date because of the incredibly huge and immersive world it creates. The game surrounds the player with stunning vistas which make the game play experience really enjoyable and addictive.
The fictional world Skyrim takes place in has been given a rich history which players have the option of delving into. Many of the backgrounds help tell some of the parts of fictional history or at least tease at them. Below is an image of a Dwemer ruin which is a from a race that is extinct from the game. A player seeing this would be intrigued into what is and possibly coheres them into looking into it further.

The natural world is also very beautiful in the game. A lot of the game does involve wondering around the wilderness and gives the player an opportunity to hunt/forage. The creation of a more relatable natural environment makes the gaming experience for this kind of thing much better.

The game has lots of characters within it and each one has there own story to tell some are much more in depth than others but non the less still a narrative. The backgrounds that surround where the characters are in the game help to tell this story whether they're living in a cave or in a castle, how the might have turned a cave into an amazing underground hideout or there is just some pelt and a fire tells a lot about the character before you even meet them.

animation environment

Adventure time has a very strange world and rather simplistic story lines. The world is what makes the show so interesting. The world is so vibrant and diverse because of the thought that goes into the backgrounds.












Adventure time is all about the world its set in and much like a  role playing game it should transport the viewer into said world. The backgrounds help them do this very successfully through frequent use of (extreme) long shots.

The attention to detail is what makes the adventure time environments so effective. In a lot of the backgrounds especially things like dungeons or places characters can explore there are little added bits that give more context to the environment/story. The colour used is also really effective. The colour schemes for different backgrounds really set the tone of the current scene, since backgrounds generally make up a large portion of whats on camera this is really important.

sound animation

https://vimeo.com/89193540

Composition in blue is an animation by Oskar Fischinger and was made in 1935. Its a stop motion animation that uses cutouts and shapes.This animation is extremely impressive because of how well it fits the piece of music especially because of the technological limitation of the time. The animation interprets the music into simple geometric shapes that grow and move. The sound textures are delivered through changes in shapes and colour that match the tempo of the track. The music is a classical piece that flow rather smoothly but also has lots of jarring strings in it, the animation fits this really well. The aesthetic of the animation is very interesting because it reflects work of artists Kandinsky and the bauhaus which were running at the same time.

enviroment animation

Hayao Miyazaki latest and final film the wind rises has some of the most stunning backgrounds in animation I've seen to date. This scene is one of the best examples of the environments in the film. The film is set in a time where patriotism is rife through japan so the background really emulate the beauty of the country and the general tone of the country and that time in history. The backgrounds make up a large amount of each scene and this film backgrounds are really important as they make up most of the mise an scene.

Sketchbook

I'v been keeping an a5 sketchbook in which I do all the drawings that  I do purely for enjoyment. Any spur of the moment ideas or emotions I want draw I do in this sketchbook

I really enjoy drawing intricate patterns I find them relaxing to do. The right image was me trying to copy Bryan Lee O'Mally (author of scott pilgrim, lost at sea) style as its simplistic but captures character identity really well.

Drawing myself when I was under a lot of stress using whatever materials felt right to use at the time. I really enjoy drawing without thinking too much about what goes on the page and letting the image be more of an autonomic response. Below I was listing to some jazz and tried to capture the moment.

Last two pages I was testing drawing with indian ink using just brush and water. I really love using the medium gives a real depth to shading and I found it way easier to blend than pencil. The characters were just taken from some small doodles I did in my notebook and elaborated. 

These pages were just some colour experimentation. I feel that my use of colour could be improved a lot so playing around with colour in any way to see what works well I think is always beneficial. 

I find drawing landscapes interesting but also quite difficult here are a couple I drew the left from my imagination and the right in a jazz cafe from real life.

Sound animation

This is an another music video for a song by bonobo.

This music video is very different to the other instead of corresponding the sounds to specific visuals it uses the music to help tell a story. It was animated Anthony Schepperd who's known for using a colourful and crazy visual style. whilst also doing this the video still takes cues from the music and follows the tempo so the visuals matches the sound. The choice for this animators visual style fits the song really well. The video matches the erratic drum beat of the track really well using the jumping colourful shapes but then uses slow panning shots during mellower parts of the song. 

Sound animation

This is a music video for an electronic song made by Noisia and krs one.

This music video interoperates the sounds of the song very interestingly and in my opinion very successfully. The video matches the sounds to visuals that would match them using the song more like sound effects, which works incredibly well. With the visuals the sounds create a narrative are formed fro them them and although it is not particularly strong the flow of the animation with the music masks this.

chosen book

For this brief I decided to choose a graphic novel rather than a book. I decided to do sweet tooth a post apocalyptic series written by Jeff Lemire. I decided to do this book because even though its a graphic novel its got one of the most well written narratives I've come across. The genre as well gives a lot of scope to incorporate a lot of good drawing within the animation.